O'Shea Jackson Jr. wanted to cement his family legacy with his first movie.

The 24-year-old star is the son of rapper Ice Cube and steps into his shoes with new movie Straight Outta Compton, which follows hip hop group N.W.A as they record and release the title album.

It marked O'Sea's acting debut, and although his dad served as producer alongside fellow N.W.A member Dr. Dre, it wasn't a walk in the park.

"Very difficult, anybody who thinks acting is easy or that being in any role is easy does not have respect for the craft. It took a lot of energy a lot of my time and other people’s time, I thank all who helped me or I wouldn’t be here," he told theyoungfolks.com.

"I personally put more pressure on myself. This all started by me choosing not to sit in a theatre and see someone else portray him and me not think it was up to par or not feel it. So I had to make sure the ball was in my hands to cement my family legacy in cinema forever."

Musical O'Shea is recording his own material too and his dad is on hand to lend plenty of advice, telling his offspring to put his heart into his work.

Having explored the music of previous eras thanks to the influence of Ice Cube, O'Shea has been able to compare the sounds of today with the N.W.A years.

"Extremely influential, especially when bands have something to say they are kind of stepping in the footsteps of N.W.A," he added. "Everyone seems to want to talk about this generation of music and speak down on it, but there has been bad songs, within every generation there’s still plenty of greats artists with things to say."